The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning) October 10, 2024.
Part 1: Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. #69.
Reader: Hello, we are reading in the writings of Baal HaSulam, the introduction to the study material. We continue from item 69. You can find the study material in kabbalahgroup.info in the Arvut system. You can also send questions live through these websites. Anyone asking a question in the study hall is asked to stand up, hold the mic close to his mouth and speak loudly and clearly. Item 69
Reading: (00:41) Item 69. Thus, we must understand the essence of the love of the Creator from the properties of love by which one person relates to another. The love of the Creator is necessarily given through these qualities, since they were only imprinted in man for His sake to begin with. When we observe the attributes of love between man and man, we find four measures of love, one atop the other, meaning two that are four.
M. Laitman: I don’t know what to add. So, let’s continue.
Reader: Item 70.
Reading: (01:47) Item 70 – Twice. The first is “conditional love.” It means that because of the great goodness, pleasure, and benefit that one receives from one’s friend, his soul clings to him with wondrous love.
There are two measures in this: The first measure is that before they met and began to love one another, they did harm to one another. However, now they do not want to remember it, for “Love will cover all crimes.” The second measure is that they have always done good and helped one another, and there is no trace of harm or detriment between them.
Reader: Item 70.
Reading: (03:21) Item 70, again.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:34) We read it yesterday with the Ten and the question came up. First of all, he compares love of the Creator and love of the created beings and says everything from the beginning was designed to reach love of the Creator. This first measure sounds egoistic. How much do they love me? One, he loves me so much right now, he doesn't love me so much, well, he loves me but I'm looking at the past and it covers all the harm. And the second one is such that everything does not cover the stuff from the past. The other is, sorry I didn't get it fully, does it only sound egoistic?
M. Laitman: Sounds like it, sounds like it, yes. That's how it's seen within the desires of the person. That there is some relationship between the Creator and him, through these senses that the Creator relates to him through these senses of love.
Student: So, if you love someone and you truly love him all the time and we learn it in the end, and he loves you back?
M. Laitman: Either he loves you and later stops loving you because he always has a feeling of love coming from you.
Student: So, he takes it for granted. What's the work of the created being on his side if he feels that the Creator loves him personally, then what is his work on this level of love?
M. Laitman: That depends on what the Creator wants to awaken within him. There's no rule to it. From a person's desires we can see that if you love him, you can get two things, two responses. Either he loves you back, or he belittles you, disregards you, because it's clear to him that your love for him is permanent, well established, and there's nothing to check, there's nothing to check there or reconsider. So, the ego of the other one it stops investing energy into it, it even starts disregarding it. We see it in children, we see it in various cases. Yes, continue.
Reader: Item 72.
Reading: (08:06) Item 72 – Twice. The second is “unconditional love.” It means that one knows the virtue of one’s friend
to be sublime, beyond any imaginable measure. Because of this, his soul clings to him with immeasurable love.
Here, too, there are two measures: The first measure is before one knows every conduct and deed of one’s friend with others. At that time, this love is considered “less than absolute love.” This is because one’s friend has dealings with others, and on the surface, he seems to be harming others out of negligence. In this manner if the lover saw them, the merit of his friend would be entirely blemished and the love between them would be corrupted. Yet, since he has not seen these dealings, his love is still whole, great, and truly wonderful.
M. Laitman: Yes, that's the first kind of love. Yes. Perhaps again.
Reader: Item 72.
Reading: (09:58) Item 72, again.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (11:49) Here as well. He's looking at his friend's attitude toward himself, not to him. To others, I'm sorry, not to himself. He's not looking at himself, but he's looking at how the friend relates to others. And the first stage of this state is because he doesn't see his attitude toward others, he can't condemn him. The question is, if he doesn't know about his attitude toward others. He says, “I look at the friend, I don't see how he relates to others. That's why I still love him. Or he doesn't want to see the friend's bad attitude?
M. Laitman: You're talking about the second measure.
Student: The second condition, the second state. The first measure of that first stage.
M. Laitman: “Before he knows about his friend's dealing with others. And then his love is considered incomplete. Because on the surface, his friend seems to be harming others out of negligence. In this manner if the lover saw them, the merit of his friend would be entirely blemished, and the love between them would be corrupted.” What's the question then?
Student: He explains how the friend relates to others, not to himself. That's an unconditional degree. Does he not see how the friend relates to others? Or he doesn't want to see that a friend relates badly to others?
M. Laitman: Let's see. “Yet, since he has not seen these dealings, his love is still whole, great, and truly wonderful.” So, it's as though he doesn't see.
Student: So, why is it called unconditional love if he doesn't see his attitude toward others? It's still like the previous degree. In Item 72 he says, the second is unconditional love. It means that one knows the virtue of one's friend to be sublime beyond any imaginable measure. Because of this, his soul clings to him with immeasurable love. When he looks at the friend not only how he relates to me but also how he relates in general. The entire attitude of the friend toward reality is good.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: He says, in this, there's the first measure where he doesn't see his attitude toward others. If he doesn't see the attitude toward others, it's in contradiction. Or you can understand that he doesn't want to see the friend as negligent and evil. He tries to justify him. So, the first measure is before he knows every conduct and deed of one's friend with others, that time this love is considered less than absolute love. This is because one's friend has dealings with others, and on the surface he seems to be harming others out of negligence. In this manner, if the lover saw them, the merit of the friend would be entirely blemished and the love between them would be corrupted. Yet, since he has not seen these dealings, his love is still whole, great, and truly wonderful.
M. Laitman: Yes. Up to here, it's clear. Right?
Student: There's a question. We haven't found an answer to it.
M. Laitman: A question?
Student: Does he truly not see his relationship with others, or did he not see it, or he doesn't want to see the friend as bad?
M. Laitman: What's the difference between the two?
Student: There's a choice by the person. If he can't see it, he can't see it. It doesn't exist. He looks at the friend, the attitude toward me, and that's it. There's no attitude toward others. It's like the previous degree.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: But if he says, let's take it to people, not the Creator, I hear about my friend, they say something bad about him, it's impossible, forget it, I know him, it's not him. Or I never heard anything, no one said anything bad about the friend, so I still look at him, he loves me, I love him, and that's it.
M. Laitman: Yes. All right.
Student: So, it's a question. I don't know if…
M. Laitman: It could be either. More questions?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (18:13) He writes this is love, unconditional love, what does that mean?
M. Laitman: Unconditional, meaning it's not conditional on anything.
Student: Meaning no matter what, he loves him?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: He says that if a lover would see it, his love would be blemished. It's not exactly unconditional.
M. Laitman: Yes, not whole.
Student: I understand this is the first measure, and there's a second measure, but he says that if he would see it, then there's a condition here. Oh, I see my friend blemished and I don't love him. So, there's some conditioning here.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, how does that work out? There are two opposites here.
M. Laitman: Conditional love and unconditional love, yes.
Student: This is the second. He interprets unconditional love after we went through the first one which is conditional love. I guess there's a deliberate contradiction here.
M. Laitman: Yes, when he already knows his friend's disposition and his love is whole, great, and truly wonderful. Where are you reading?
Student: This second part. His friend's merit. Yes, but there's something he doesn't see in the attitude of the friend toward others, and if he would see it, you know, he wouldn't love him. The love would be corrupted between them. I see a dissonance between what he's saying in the beginning and what he's saying later. It can be corrupted, but it's unconditional.
M. Laitman: It is still not whole. It's not a whole state.
Student: Meaning he can't hold it to his lover.
M. Laitman: Well, let's continue.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:08) What's the highest measure here? What's the highest measure of love that he's describing here? What's the… how is it measured?
M. Laitman: First of all, conditional, meaning it's contingent upon something. Then the second one, which is unconditional love. And after that, we'll come, we'll see. Unconditional love is the second measure. And after that, the third and fourth measures.
Student: It seems like the first measure is the highest, that they turn the bad to good.
M. Laitman: Again?
Student: First glance, when you read it, it looks like the first measure of conditional love is higher because they turned something bad that was between them into good.
M. Laitman: Yes, but on the first measure, can it be sustained or not?
Student: There's one blemish.
M. Laitman: He doesn't yet know of all these transactions.
Student: What is this transition from two, two, three, and four? It looks like there's no connection between them. In one and two, they have a certain contact. They receive benefits from one another.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: In the first, they turn the bad into good, the bad relationship to good. And in the second, they did only good. It looks like a normal relationship like we experienced in the Ten. It's not clear how they go to level three and four. What are those measures?
M. Laitman: They continue on.
Student: Continue in what?
M. Laitman: Unconditional love.
Student: So, what do you need to do to continue?
M. Laitman: To come to know about all his friends' actions and to see that they are on a higher degree than he could imagine. Item 72. “The second is unconditional love. It means that one knows the virtue of one's friend to be sublime beyond any imaginable measure. Because of this, his soul clings to him with immeasurable love.” Here, too, he says there are two measures.
Student: To recognize the merit of his friend. With that, does it relate to something that preceded it?
M. Laitman: It is unconditional. He has love for you without any reason, unchanging.
Student: Without any relation to what we've been through together, what we experienced.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Okay, another question. With each friend in the Ten you have to go through these four measures.
M. Laitman: We'll see soon, let's finish this here. Yes, you have a friend here.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (25:13) Item 68. It says that the world was created for me, meaning I should say that the world was created for me, for the sake of the world of the Creator, and out of the measures of love for the friend. And we know in the work you have one against another. If we were on the level of faith and we could see the attitude of the body to the revelation of love, what's conditioned and unconditioned and the measures between them. According to the revelation of evil, we would know what's required to advance.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (26:08) In Item 72, What merit of his friend did he know? It's written that he knew it before.
M. Laitman: Perhaps his friend's love is above any kind of disruption or hindrance. He simply wants to love others.
Student: That the love of the friend toward him, toward me, above all the disturbances?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And if I didn't know his love is above all the disturbances, it wouldn't be considered unconditional love?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: But it doesn't work out. There is a condition. If he didn't see him this way, he wouldn't be unconditional. If he didn't see him this way, he wouldn't be unconditional.
M. Laitman: Yes, yes. You have a point. Yes. So where are we?
Reader: Item 73.
M. Laitman: Item 73, very well.
Reader: Item 73.
Reading: (27:38) Item 73. The second attribute of unconditional love is the fourth attribute of love in general, which also comes from knowing the merit of his friend. Yet, in addition, now he knows all his dealings and conducts with every person, none missing. He has checked and found that not only is there no trace of a flaw in them, but his goodness is greater than anything imaginable. Now it is “eternal and complete love.”
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (28:44) Here too, we discussed that maybe it's possible that conditional or unconditional is the attitude toward you. And unconditional is the attitude in general to the reality of the friend. Look at the friend and he said, oh, how nice. He loves everyone, all created beings. He loves everyone completely. And the question is if each degree here is an addition on the previous, or if it stands on its own. For example, in conditional love, a person is looking to see what he is receiving from the friend. And with unconditional love, he places himself off to the side, and he looks at the friend. How does the friend, loving all the created beings, how does he love all the created beings or everyone around him? But that makes it conditional or unconditional. The question is if each degree is an addition on the previous degree.
M. Laitman: Yes, an addition.
Student: If it is an unconditional love, he doesn't look at himself at all. He looks at the friend and his qualities and merits.
M. Laitman: Yes. If he has already emerged beyond his own boundaries, if he doesn't measure his friend with his own vessels, then of course this love is different already. That's it. A few more questions there, please.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (30:40) Simply put, when is there love between friends?
M. Laitman: Again?
Student: When is it considered that there is love between friends? When do I love the friend?
M. Laitman: When you check according to what he explains to us here.
Student: Love between friends is my attitude toward the Creator. The way I relate to the friend is…?
M. Laitman: How do you switch from that towards the Creator?
Student: Yes.
M. Laitman: After examining your attitude towards the friends? Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (31:36) What does it mean to decide every day how do I love the friend? Here he says, “I need absolute love. I need every day anew to decide if I love the friend or I don't love the friend. Based on his attitude toward other friends with me. So, what is that decision? Every day I have to decide, I have to examine how much I love the friend.
M. Laitman: You are new every day, and you don't even know what exactly changed in you. That's why you have this duty to perform this examination every day.
Student: So, the test is relative to me toward the friend. In 69 he gives an example where we must understand the essence of the love of the Creator from the properties of love by which one person relates to another. It's a comparison. How the Creator loves us, according to the attitude we display toward one another. So, in the attitude we are building between us every day anew, how do we feel the love of the Creator there? Because he says that by building more and more, a higher and higher relationship between us, in the connection between us, there we can observe the love of the Creator. How is one related to the other?
M. Laitman: Because you prepare a vessel for it. The vessel comes from you. In it you feel, you measure, you weigh everything that you have with respect to the friends and with respect to the Creator.
Student: So, why do I have to measure the attitude of the friend toward others, and accordingly I can love him more or less? I'll decide to love him less today, or I can get up today and say, according to his attitude toward other friends, I don't love him. How can there be such a state with unconditional love?
M. Laitman: Why not?
Student: Because on the one hand he says that it's unconditional love. So why do I need every day to decide? If love is unconditional, why do I have to decide every day how I love the friend?
M. Laitman: Because then everything depends on the measure of your connection with the Creator. Here, there is a question. Do you know the Creator enough? Are you within Him, in Him so that you can determine what His attitude towards others needs to be?
Student: Do I need to depict this wider picture, how the Creator would want to see the relationship between us and accordingly reveal the love of the Creator to us?
M. Laitman: It's completely conditional then.
Student: It's still conditioned.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (35:36) He explains here that in order for unconditional love to be, a person needs to scrutinize and see the merits of the friend. And if he sees that he is great, and he sees his friend's merits, love awakens in him, he wants to adhere to him, then this is love, but it's unconditional. But for that, he needs to see the merits of the friend and divide it into two. One, where he sees his merits, and completely, and how he bestows to the whole world. And the other one is where he actually sees it, how he is doing favors to others. He tested it, he checked it, and he sees it. With the Creator, it's clear how a person comes to the feeling that the Creator does good to all created beings. The question is, is it possible? Does it happen in the work? We see a friend, and we come to a state where we see the friend bestowing to the whole world goodness, 100%? Does that exist in our work?
M. Laitman: Why can it not be?
Student: Question is, should a person look into those things? Should he check how the friend's merits, qualities are expressed for the whole world? Let's say in the Ten, he checks these qualities, he checks the friend, how is he bestowing?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: So, how does he come to a state where he checked and he saw that the friend bestows to the whole world? If you can read the final, the last letter, the item, it's the highest measure. Theoretically, I can understand, especially if you talk about it between a person and the Creator. But between a person and his friend, he sees him, and he comes to such a perception that this is how the friend is. The question is, should we even come to this in the work?
M. Laitman: Item 73. “The second attribute of unconditional love is the fourth attribute of love in general. Which also comes from knowing the merit of his friend. Yet, in addition, in addition, now he knows all his dealings and conducts with every person, none-missing. He has checked and found that not only is there no trace of a flaw in them, but his goodness is greater than anything imaginable. Now, it is eternal and complete love.”
Student: Where do you see this? Where a person sees the friend in such a way, where did we read about it? When a person sees that his friend is whole, perfect relative to all the world?
M. Laitman: So, he writes.
Student: We're supposed to come to it with the Creator. So, it's written that we first have to reach it with the friends. He also explains that the work with a friend to qualify him to reach that feeling toward the Creator. I didn't quite see elsewhere that he needs to see the friend in this way, that he has to come to it.
M. Laitman: But you see what he says. He talks about how that person changes, the person described here, until he reaches the degree of the Creator.
Student: The friend sees his friend and the degree of the Creator, that's the state of eternal love in him where he sees the friend and the degree where he has no blemish whatsoever relative to all of creation.
M. Laitman: Yes, he attests to that in the person himself who determines this. It's the same.
Student: That he has absolute love.
M. Laitman: Item 73. Yes.
Reader: Item 73.
Reading: (41:07) Item 73, again.
M. Laitman: All right.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (42:09) As you said now, we're speaking about a changing person, how he calibrates a new attitude toward the other, toward the friend, the Creator, both in unconditional love. Unconditional love, he goes from the first attribute to the second. He calibrates himself differently. At first he sees some flaws, then he justifies the other. I can understand that in the beginning he saw flaws, then he discovers that he is wrong, but he still felt the flaws, the blemishes. Does it disappear when he reaches just a justification? What happens with those flaws, those crimes?
M. Laitman: With those qualities, you wish to say. How can it be that he is so corrected and still has these qualities?
Student: When he corrects himself and he sees that the Creator never did harm to anyone. He did feel that once before, that the Creator did bad and caused trouble to others.
M. Laitman: But he felt that with his own vessels.
Student: So, when those vessels are corrected, what happens to the corruptions? He discovers that they never existed?
M. Laitman: Yes, of course.
Student: So, there is an ascent above time. How? What I felt before as suffering, as torment, I feel it was never torment.
M. Laitman: I don't know how to explain it, but it's clear that every person judges things within his vessels. Also, when he goes through these qualities, they appear within him, and he judges. So, it's natural for him to rise through these degrees, one, two, three, four, goes through those and establishes how he relates to the friends and the Creator.
Student: So, his previous determinations are canceled? The way I saw the past, it changes, the present, the future change?
M. Laitman: That's how it should be.
Student: So, these attributes are a correction of man's entire perception.
M. Laitman: The same way in our lives, if you could say, because we are in the flow of life, right? And here, the way we relate to things, the way we relate to life, feel life, it changes.
Student: Forgive me for insisting, let's say as a child I think mommy is bad. Then I grow up and I understand she wanted only good from me, but I remember as a kid that I felt bad when she punished me. So, this feeling disappears?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: It doesn't disappear. So, it gets whole, complemented?
M. Laitman: Yes, it becomes whole. It's correct the way you put it. Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (45:51) Baal HaSulam explains here that from the love of a friend, you can learn about love for the Creator. And I want to ask about what's written here. He knew the merit of his friend, that his goodness is greater than anything imaginable, and because of that his soul cleaves to him in love, eternal love. Relative to the Creator, what kind of quality he reveals in the Creator as a result of which he adheres to Him? What quality he reveals in the Creator?
M. Laitman: I suppose complete love, whole love, yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (46:52) We read in different places that a person cannot exist without pleasure. He must receive or give, but he needs a certain attitude. It seems like the love is not related to this, and how can we explain it?
M. Laitman: Love, as well as its opposite, all is felt within vessels which reveal measures of pleasure that fulfills them.
Student: It sounds to me, when we talk about reception, there's either self-reception or something else which is maybe related to bestowal, but here it seems like there's no relation between the lover and the subject of his love. There's only looking from the side and seeing how he behaves with others, how he connects himself with others. So, where is this attitude of reception or bestowal?
M. Laitman: I don't exactly follow.
Student: In which vessels, let's say, when he relates to the lover, in which vessels does he discover it?
M. Laitman: He always discovers within the vessels he has within him.
Student: Vessels of reception?
M. Laitman: Vessels of reception, vessels of bestowal, it doesn't matter, but the vessels within him. Onwards, yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (49:21) I also understood that conditional love is conditioned on the attitude that I receive. So, in item 71, is it true to say that…Sorry, Item 70. I'm speaking in love that is measured in vessels of reception, what do I feel that I'm receiving from the front? And 72 is vessels of bestowal?
M. Laitman: So, meaning those vessels are more corrected, and then in those very vessels you feel the same influence, the same bestowal, but you relate to it differently.
Student: Yes, Item 72, the measurement for the friend is in the vessel of bestowal, not in the vessel of reception. Is this correct?
M. Laitman: It may be so, yes.
Student: So, how can we start developing such an attitude toward the friends, or measurement which is a measurement of bestowal, but not in the vessel of reception?
M. Laitman: But it depends on the individual and the extent to which he can rise above his vessels and so to express a different kind of attitude towards the Creator.
Student: So, is the attitude, we do what we do, and we wait for the light to come and correct us, or is it recommended to relate in the form of bestowal even if we don't feel it yet?
M. Laitman: No, you could try.
Student: So, how is this effort done? What's the exercise to relate to the friend in the form of a vessel of bestowal, or measure the attitude in this way?
M. Laitman: No, try doing it amongst yourselves.
Student: Try what?
M. Laitman: Establish such relations as you now describe.
Student: If I want to measure the friends in the vessel of bestowal, how do I do it?
M. Laitman: In the vessels of bestowal, where do you have vessels of bestowal?
Student: That's what I'm asking. If I want to create a simulation, let's call it, to come close to this state.
M. Laitman: Yes. It really will be a simulation, nothing real in it. And so, why should we do that?
Student: So, it's not beneficial to do such an effort? No, because it says, try to be in the next degree. Imagine it, try to be in it before it's inside of me. I'm asking if it's beneficial to do such an exercise.
M. Laitman: No, according to what you just said, no.
Okay, thank you. No.
Question (Women Turkiye 8): (53:08) When you have eternal love, whole love through one person, do you still feel hate toward other people around the world?
M. Laitman: No. No.
Question (Women PT 6): (53:33) What is unconditional love in the Ten, and how can you hold on to it?
M. Laitman: Unconditional love.
Student: In the Ten?
M. Laitman: In the Ten. That already indicates that they're connected beyond any measure. There's nothing to add to that. No doubts, no weaknesses, nothing. Nothing to do except to hold on to that love, and then to receive with it, in it, everything the Creator wishes to give. All right? Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (54:48) It follows that to reach absolute love we need to rise above the flaws and correct it.
M. Laitman: We do that ourselves.
Student: What do you mean?
M. Laitman: We demand to open up to us the degree in which we're not yet in adhesion.
Student: So, we've been asked to see the flaws?
M. Laitman: Yes, otherwise we won't be able to see the flaws. Okay. All right? Good? Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (55:46) What? What about the friend who discovers his own negligence? Where does he get incorporated in what Baal HaSulam writes?
M. Laitman: Didn't understand. Again?
Student: The friend who discovers that he is being negligent. Where does he fit with what Baal HaSulam writes?
M. Laitman: It's a flaw within him due to which he cannot be connected to the others. And then he has nothing to do but to fix it. Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (57:02) Unconditional love, it's like love of a mother. No matter what the child will do to her, she forgives him and continues to love him.
M. Laitman: I don't understand exactly.
Student: This unconditional love, absolutely. Is it like the absolute love of a mother to a child? There are states where a child comes to kill the mother, and she survives, and she forgives him. She continues to care for him, she goes to prison and everything. Is this unconditional love?
M. Laitman: Let's say.
Student: That's why we need to reach such a love.
M. Laitman: Between mother and child will always go wrong. We cannot take into account all those feelings that exist between them by nature. By nature towards the child and by nature towards the mother.
Student: That's what unconditional love looks like. Whatever he will do, she will love him. We have to reach such love between us?
M. Laitman: Look, we come to measure love through lack, through the lack of love. And between a child and a mother, it's very difficult for us to describe it correctly. Before he was even born, he's within her love. Right. And so, he can never come out of that. And she can never hate him.
Student: And how is it between us, this unconditional love between the friends?
M. Laitman: That's when we reach the degree of the Creator, who loves everything and everyone. And then we come to the degree of love, which is unconditional.
Student: So, from his love we understand what it means to love.
M. Laitman: Yes. All right? Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (59:46) But I heard from you that there's no objective view. The person always looks from his correction or corruption. And in unconditional love there's the second stage where he not only looks at the merit of the friend through what's happening, passing through him, but through the friend's attitude toward other friends. With which vessel can he observe the attitude of the friend to others? How from looking at the merit of the friend toward him you can go to the merit of the friend toward others?
M. Laitman: A person always sees the way one person relates to another within his own vessels. He pictures it to himself how it could be if he were in a different place, if it were aimed towards him, or he aimed it at someone else, towards someone else. Only according to that can we perform this calculation.
Student: So, he comes to such a level where he, with the sensitivity that he develops, he feels what the friend feels toward another friend?
M. Laitman: It's very difficult, but it can be. Yes. That's how we imagine. We imagine it until we reach the true state. Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:01:58) He says you should know that all the inclinations and better than a person to use toward his friends, all those natural inclinations are needed for the work of the Creator. When a person works, he discovers that these qualities the Creator created in him actually blemish the love that he needs, or they blemish what he is supposed to be doing with the friends. So, he begins to hate these qualities, and here it's written that he needs to use them. How do you come to remove from a state where you feel those qualities in you are harmful to the work of the friend or unusable? What does he do with them? He's supposed to use them. How?
M. Laitman: He uses them by first awakening them and then rising above them.
Student: First of all, they are used through negation.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, all these qualities in the beginning we need to, maybe Rav can explain how, maybe just another word or two, how something awakens in him. Let's say he has this quality where he wants to get to it, but there's a quality that stops him.
M. Laitman: There's no righteous man in the land who does good and never sinned.
Student: So, how does he rise above it?
M. Laitman: He has to go through all the sins, and we see that from the texts. And by going through them, he also acquires a new outlook, a new attitude towards them and he corrects them.
Student: The new attitude does not happen immediately. It's like he gets frustrated more and more from another quality, and another quality in him. What does the process build in a person?
M. Laitman: It builds vessels in him.
Student: But all the vessels are in negation. He feels that how incapable he is.
M. Laitman: No, now he turns them as though he digs, he digs in the ground. He raises them, turns them, turns them around, inverts them, and then begins to receive a new degree in them.
Student: What is this action of inverting them, turning them upside down? He feels them, that they're harmful, but he turns them around. How does that happen?
M. Laitman: The same way we want to transition from in order to receive to in order to bestow. The action itself can be the same exact action, and the outcome could also seemingly be the same outcome, the same result, but in the middle there, how to put it, I perform the act of negation, inversion.
Student: This action, I think we need to learn how to do it because many times I see me and with the friends, we come to a certain point, we feel it, and it pushes a person away because he doesn't know how to use it correctly. So, he prefers not to harm the Ten, not to do bad, so he takes a step back. Maybe by dealing with his inability, maybe that's sort of an action of work in the field,
M. Laitman: The Creator will help.
Student: What is being negligent in love of friends? How do I check myself, see that I'm negligent in love of friends?
M. Laitman: You examine yourself, you want to see, you want to find where you received states that you went through and disregarded, and then you don't know how to correct them, how to ask the Creator to correct them, and from that point, He comes and corrects you.
Student: Everything I see with my own vessels, if I discover corruption in my attitude toward the friends, and I don't ask for correction from the Creator on this connection, is this negligent, being negligent?
M. Laitman: I don't understand.
Student: If I discover in my vessels corruption in my attitude toward friends, with that discernment where I see that my attitude is not good toward the friends, it's not with love, and I'm not asking the Creator for correction, is this negligence?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, every opportunity, when the Creator brings in such states, I have to ask for correction because only the Creator can correct my attitude?
M. Laitman: If you discover the corruption, then you can ask for a correction to it. There needs to be preliminary work done. Yes. Alright? Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:08:41) I just want to summarize it shortly. So, conditional love is when a person is not able to relate it to the Creator. He restricts himself, limits himself, tries not to relate to the flaws, and he bestows 40-50%, whatever he can. Unconditional love is when he is capable of relating everything to the Creator, and then if he sees flaws or not, he's able to bestow. This umbrella covers the state.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, it doesn't matter the state you're in, you're able to bestow. Is this a correct direction?
M. Laitman: Relatively speaking.
Student: So, make it more precise.
M. Laitman: No, I can't make it more precise. It needs to become clear from the actions. But in general, you speak correctly. Yes, continue.
Student: So, you don't really discover the Creator. You only see the ramification from his work?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, what do you sanctify? I don't understand. What is this love? Where is this love? Who? It's like between the vessels, not inside of them, ever. Or maybe it's in them and then it comes out of them.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: I don't have words. I'm trying to get you to help me express it better, articulate it.
M. Laitman: You speak true, it's correct. The main thing is how we transition from revelation to correction, and that depends on the preparation of the group, the preparation of my connection to the Creator, depends on the study which we conduct together in here. Many different things, many different causes accumulate until you reach your soul.
Student: He writes, I don't remember if it's your teacher, but there's work in a non-linear reality and an existence of reality. This is two parts. First, you cancel what you perceive initially, and then you sustain a new reality. So, love is the end, it is what you want to get to in sustaining reality. But before that, there is nothing.
M. Laitman: Before that, there's nothing.
Student: But the yearning to attain it, this is the instrument, this is the work.
M. Laitman: Yes, you're right.
Student: Is this enough? I feel it's incomplete. Is it enough for you?
M. Laitman: All right, wait. We have a few more lessons to go, and we'll see. We'll discover more. But so far, it's true, correct? Good. Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:12:33) Can I ask you a general question?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: 20 letters ago, we read that Baal HaSulam wrote that the Creator is concealed in the Torah, and he asks, how can he be concealed in the Torah? He's concealed in all the follies of the world, not in the Torah. But he says that specifically in the Torah, it says that he's hiding there, and those who search Me will find. About the text today, it's clear that it's not clear. And from all the places, I can't find myself. But from that, after 20 letters, I understood that maybe that's why I got a headache that the Creator is concealed in the Torah. The question is, is it possible that we are reading the text? Let's say what we read today, and 20 items later, we'll receive an answer. This attitude.
M. Laitman: Only today, we are beginning to talk about a solution. We just started.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:14:01) I was confused because of all the questions. I want to ask, we are reading about love, absolute, conditioned, unconditioned. These are degrees of revelation of the Creator, degrees of attainment, or degrees of justification.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Is it correct to translate it to a relationship between the friends, or is it only speaking of relationship to the Creator?
M. Laitman: Let's follow the text, and not skip ahead, above it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:14:39) He writes about it in 69, the essence of love of the Creator, from the way a man relates to his friend. So, from that we have to get to something that we cannot perceive, which is love to the Creator.
Item 74. 74, okay.
Reader: Item 74.
Reading: (01:15:15) Item 74. Note that these four attributes of love between man and man also apply between man and the Creator. Moreover, here, in the love of the Creator, they become degrees through cause and consequence.
It is impossible to acquire any of them before one acquires the first attribute of conditional love. After it is completely acquired, that first attribute causes one to acquire the second attribute. After one has acquired the second attribute to the fullest, it causes him to acquire the third attribute. Finally, the third attribute to the fourth attribute, eternal love.
M. Laitman: Yes, meaning here, the way is already wide open. Next, 75.
Reader: Item 75.
Reading: (01:16:42) Item 75. Accordingly, the question arises, “How can one acquire the first degree of love of the Creator, the first degree of conditional love, which is love that comes through the abundance of goodness that one receives from the loved one, when we accept that there is no reward for a Mitzva in this world?”
Moreover, according to the above, one must go through the first two forms of Providence by way of concealment of the face. In other words, His face, meaning His measure of goodness—the conduct of the good is to do good—is concealed at that time (Item 47). Therefore, at that time, one experiences pain and suffering.
Nevertheless, we learn that the whole practice of Torah and work out of choice is conducted primarily during that time of concealment of the face. If so, how can it be that one will be awarded the second attribute of conditional love, being that the loved one has always done only wondrous and plentiful good, and never caused him any harm at all, and it goes without saying that he will be granted the third degree or the fourth?
M. Laitman: Is that clear? Meaning, and now it already follows the older, the gradation.
Reader: Item 76.
Reading: (01:19:00) Item 76. Indeed, we dive into deep water here. At the very least, we must fish out a precious gem from this. For this reason, let us examine the words of our sages (Berachot 17), “When the sages would come out from the house of Rabbi Ami, and some say from the house of Rabbi Hanina, they told him the following, ‘You will see your world in your life, and your end to the life of the next world, and your steps shall run to hear the words of Atik Yomin.’”
We must understand why they did not say, “You will receive your world in your life,” but only “see.” If they wanted to bless, they should have blessed wholly, meaning to acquire and receive his world in his life. We must also understand why should one see his next world in his life? At least his end will be the life of the next world. Moreover, why did they place this blessing first?
M. Laitman: Okay? There's no question about the text itself? Okay, let's stop here, and let's move on to the next part.
Reader: (01:20:52) So, let's go to the next part and sing a song first.
Song: (01:20:59)